Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-03-11
DRINK MATHEMATICS.
Figures That Give a Startling Portraitur,
Every state Has Miniature Chicagos.

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Every state Has Miniature Chicagos.
The Sunday Herald, Of Chicago, ILL.,.
has devoted q column of fine print to a
practical view of the beer drinking ques-
ton. A mathematical man has figured on
the business and has reached some fearful
conclusions, the more terrible because true.
The Herald introduces the subject in the
following words:
There are some thoughtful men who look
under the surface of things. City Collector
Onahan is one of them. "The labor ques-
ton" says the Collector, lis not SO much q
question of labor as it is of liquor, ~laziness
and loafng. I estimate that the sum of
thirty million dollars is spent every year in
the saloons of Chicago. From whom does
the bulk Of the money come? From the
wage-working class. As a rule merchants
and employers do not go into the saloons.
The wealthier people drink in clubs or at
home, if at all. In the main, the saloons
are supported by the poor. Thirty millions
of dollars is q good deal of money to come
from the pockets of the wage-earning peo-
pie of a single city. If you don't think so,
sit down some evening and figure out what
thirty million dollars would buy.
A million Eve hundred and SIXTY thousand
barrels of beer in q year consumed in one
city! Place those barrels end to end, and
We would have q row of them reaching
nearly from New York to Chicago. Draw
their contents into glasses, and set all the
glasses in q row upon q bar, and the bar.
counting four inches to the glass, would
needs be nearly as long as the world is
wide. Think of a row of beer glasses
twenty thousand miles long, and of their
being emptied down the throats of Chi
cagoans in q single year! Pour the con-
4 forfc of oil fhoco nj ooooo into ~ rooo~-o;u
and We should have q lake ten feet deep,
one thousand feet long, six hundred feet
wide. The United States navy would find
in this lake Of Chicago's beer quite as
much sea-room as it is worthy of.
lnasmuch as the frontage of saloon
buildings in Chicago average twenty feet,
it follows that for the three thousand seven
hundred liquor shops We have seventy-four
thousand feet, or fourteen miles of 'front.'
age. There is an equal number of miles of
bars, measured from end to end.
Ihirty-fve or, possibly, forty million
dollars a year for beer and liquor drank in
Chicago, and most of it by people who
work for weekly or monthly wages, is worth
thinking about.
1t is five dollars a year for every man,
woman, and child in the city.
1t is a greater sum than the hundred
thousand families of Chicago supported
by wage workers pay for rent.
1t is a greater sum than they pay TO,
groceries, or for clothing and boots and
shoes together.
1t would buy a five hundred dollar lot,
and build a twelve hundred and fifty dol
lar cottage for twenty thousand Of those
families, and in five years it would give
homes to the whole hundred thousand
families.
In ten years it would redeem Chicago
from the landlords, and make every man
the owner of his own home.
In one year it would buy q library Of two
hundred standard volumes for every home
in Chicago that is without one.
In II year it would build in each of the
eighteen wards in the city of Chicago a
great building, containing q gymnasium,
swimming-bath, library, r%eading-room,
card-room, museum-each building TO cost
with its site one million dollars; and. in
addition to this, it would endow each OF
these Ward Public Socials with q million
dollar fund, equal to an income of ffty
thousand dollars a year.
Every family could have a horse and car
riage.
1t would each year buy and for the wear
Keep a horse and carriage for every family
in Chicago that is without a private con.
veyance.
It would in one year build an elevated
railway reaching all parts of the CITY, with
fifty miles of track, and endow the enter
PRISE with an income investment which
would enable it to maintain itself unon a
uniform fare of three cents.
1t would enable every salaried worker in
Chicago to take a months rest in midsum-
mer, and a trip to the mountains or sea-
side.
1t would buy q 800 seal-skin sack for
every woman in Chicago.
1t would enable 100, 600 Chicago families
to lake four of the best monthly magazines.
three of the best illustrated weekiies. two
daily newspapers, and a clildren's weekly.
And even then each family would have lat
SO a week to expend in the purchase Of
new books. -
In fact, it is difficult to think of anytbino
requiring the expenditure of money that f
would not do, and there is no law against
dreaming. But for the present. at least
business is likely to continue the same old
way, and it is probable that Christmas Of
1887 will find 1000 saloons in Chicago
each with a clientage sufficiently LARGE to
make glad the heart of the proprietor and
his friend and hacker, the beer brewer.
What is said Of Chicago in the above
article is equally true of every CITY. taking
into consideration their population and
number of saloons. anu